growing wild in the san francisco hills

Oh Those Days of Existential Crisis

She just drank curdled milk.

Do you ever have those days when you wake up and before you finish making a cup of coffee you feel the impending doom and think, “Uh oh…. existential crisis.”

On these days, the most mundane and routine actions are the ones most likely to send you spiraling down an endless and ultimately fruitless contemplation of what it’s all about. The thin fibers of normalcy that hold your days together become themselves something to be examined and prove to be just as flimsy as the skin on the top of a glass of overheated milk, something that can be poked at and punctured.

What am I doing here? Why am I doing it? What’s the end goal for this week, this month, this life? Does what I do even matter? Should I brush my teeth today? Pants are so weird. The world is too arbitrary. I’m eating ice cream for breakfast because I can’t figure out what matters.

The old answers that you tell yourself for some reason don’t quite ring true today and it seems like you could fall through the living world to a different place if you’re not too careful. Appearances seem more like facades covering up reality and the truth that lurks beneath is undoubtedly dark.

On days like this, you still drink the tea made with a little bit of curdled milk. There wasn’t too much, you reason. It’s probably fine, you say. And you loathe yourself.

Sleep beckons you, but there is much work to do, even if you can’t quite figure out why. You know tomorrow will make sense again and the world will seem more solid, especially because you will have moved into your new place and won’t run into Sam anymore in the kitchen. He’s one of those where, just like girls periods move into synch after living together, your kitchen movements have synched and so every time you’re in there you’re constantly in each other’s way even though it’s not a small kitchen. It’s maddening and awkward, especially because neither of you find the other very funny and your jokes simultaneously fall flat as you try to make small talk.

Yes, life without Sam will be better. And you should really get more sleep and not eat ice cream for breakfast. The issue will resolve itself by disappearing, like it always does, and you will go back to the bright world even if you don’t quite know what it means.

I’m in a year long crisis like that! As much as I don’t wish those days upon anyone else, it certainly is reassuring to know that there are others out there wondering the same big and small wonderings that I am. Great Ariel shot too. 🙂 Loved the post.

Entertaining, as always, honest and straight to the point. Insanity comes from too many consecutive days like these. Hopefully this blog will give others hope of a light at the end of a rapidly shortening tunnel. Thank you